The Population Growth Nuances of Our Immigration Policies

Many of our public leaders on both the left and right are not only for increasing legal immigration, some of them (Hillary Clinton, for example) seem opposed to any enforcement of the immigration law except in the case of violent criminals.

There is also a series of more nuanced (and often not recognized) policies in the immigration field that push us in the same way to have ever-increasing crowds of people in the United States. It is useful to at least enumerate some of these nuances.

Babies that Produce Immigration Benefits. Suppose that for a couple of thousand dollars or so an alien outside the United States could choose between having her next baby be a citizen of a Third World country or a U.S. citizen. All the mother would have to do is to be in the country when the baby arrives and, voila, the baby gets the best birthday gift of all, U.S. citizenship!

The direct impact of this policy (which my colleague, Jon Feere, has described in some detail) is one more U.S. citizen, but that is just the beginning of the story. Dealing only with the legal immigration and taxation aspects of the matter, there are the following potential follow-on effects of that birth in, say, a Miami hospital:

The former birthright citizen baby (BCB) can grow up and have one or more children, who become little U.S. citizens.

At 18 in most states, but sometimes at a younger age, the one-time BCB can petition for a K-visa to cause the admission of a prospective alien spouse and that person's children, if any. If the marriage has already taken place, other means can be used to cause the admission of an alien spouse and the step-children.

At 21, the ex-BCB can apply for green card visas for her parents and her siblings, and each of them, once admitted can start their own migration chains.

Babies that Produce Cash Benefits. In addition to all of these impacts in the field of legal immigration, the BCB makes it possible for its alien family in the United States to receive on behalf of the BCB food stamps, nutrition from the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, and numerous tax benefits, including the Additional Child Tax Credit that can bring cash benefits even when no taxes are collected from the parent, and even if that parent is here illegally.

Had the baby in question been born overseas, none of these benefits would flow, except those related to WIC.

Babies that Deter and Often Thwart Deportations. Over and above the previously described direct (and often delayed) impacts, the BCB can have an immediate impact on the deportation process, to the extent that it still exists. An illegal alien, facing deportation, can argue — and many do — that to deport one or both parents of the BCB will create an "extreme hardship" on that little citizen.

To the extent that an officer of the government decides that an "extreme hardship" has been created, that adds at least one more adult alien to the nation's de facto population.

All of these benefits, direct and indirect, must cause the births of many children who might not otherwise be born, at least not here.

Copycat Birthplace Citizenship Babies. As these births of BCBs take place, and as the benefits of the practice become known in alien communities, other aliens will follow the same practice and additional babies will be born in the United States, beginning additional chains of migration.

So those of us who are worried about the over-population of America would like to see the United States adopt the policies of the European democracies that say the place of birth has citizenship potentialities only when one or both of the parents are citizens of the country where the birth takes place.

Meanwhile, both the Department of State, by simply not issuing visas to pregnant women, and the Department of Homeland Security, by simply not allowing the admission of pregnant nonimmigrant women, could substantially reduce the number of anchor babies.

In short, it is not just the single anchor baby that is of concern, it is the numerous secondary and tertiary results of its birth that must be considered.

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organization founded in 1985. It is the nation's only think tank devoted exclusively to research and policy analysis of the economic, social, demographic, fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States.